1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates optical and radio telescope and satellite tracking devices which must compensate for the rotational movement of the earth in order to accurately track a celestial object.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
As telescopes become larger, conventional mounting systems become large, heavy, and unwieldy. Popular today are large alt-azimuth mounted telescopes of a type referred to as Dobsionan. These are incapable of automated tracking ability, unless each axis is fitted with complex motors and drive electronics. This is inconsistent with the low cost of this type of telescope. Thus, these telescopes must be moved by hand in order to track or follow an object.
In order to allow the Dobsionan telescope to track, low profile equatorial tracking tales were developed and popularized. These consist of two horizontal table like surfaces which create a virtual axis of revolution aligned with the earth's rotational axis by the creation of two or more circular or conical bearing surfaces which are truncated by the intersecting surface of the topmost horizontal table surface. The circular or conical bearing surfaces must be accurately machined and pre-fabricated to the users latitude. Designs popularized by Gee and Poncet utilize a fixed pivot point for one bearing surface, the other being a plane or circular bearing segment. The design described by George d'Autume, U.S. Pat. No. 5,062,699, necessitates a conical surface consisting of a number of tracks and rollers. However, this too is for a singly fixed latitude, and must be pre-fabricated precisely to user's exact latitude. Thus, these platforms are unable to be mass produced and inventoried for low cost, and should the user ever move or desire to use the platform at a different latitude, another complete table must be purchased, often with long lead times.
Accordingly, these prior approaches have failed to meet the need of the telescope user.